I now come to the time in which I myself was mixed up with the people
that I have been writing about. And to make you understand how I became
connected with them, I must give you some little account of myself. My
father was the younger son of a Devonshire gentleman of moderate
property; my eldest uncle succeeded to the estate of his forefathers, my
second became an eminent attorney in London, and my father took orders.
Like most poor clergymen, he had a large family; and I have no doubt was
glad enough when my London uncle, who was a bachelor, offered to take
charge of me, and bring me up to be his successor in business.
In this way I came to live in London, in my uncle’s house, not far from
Gray’s Inn, and to be treated and esteemed as his son, and to labour with
him in his office. I was very fond of the old gentleman. He was the
confidential agent of many country squires, and had attained to his
present position as much by knowledge of human nature as by knowledge of
law; though he was learned enough in the latter. He used to say his
business was law, his pleasure heraldry. From his intimate acquaintance
with family history, and all the tragic courses of life therein involved,
to hear him talk, at leisure times, about any coat of arms that came
across his path was as good as a play or a romance. Many cases of
disputed property, dependent on a love of genealogy, were brought to him,
as to a great authority on such points. If the lawyer who came to
consult him was young, he would take no fee, only give him a long lecture
on the importance of attending to heraldry; if the lawyer was of mature
age and good standing, he would mulct him pretty well, and abuse him to
me afterwards as negligent of one great branch of the profession. His
house was in a stately new street called Ormond Street, and in it he had
a handsome library; but all the books treated of things that were past;
none of them planned or looked forward into the future. I worked
away—partly for the sake of my family at home, partly because my uncle
had really taught me to enjoy the kind of practice in which he himself
took such delight. I suspect I worked too hard; at any rate, in
seventeen hundred and eighteen I was far from well, and my good uncle was
disturbed by my ill looks.
One day, he rang the bell twice into the clerk’s room at the dingy office
in Grey’s Inn Lane. It was the summons for me, and I went into his
private room just as a gentleman—whom I knew well enough by sight as an
Irish lawyer of more reputation than he deserved—was leaving.
My uncle was slowly rubbing his hands together and considering. I was
there two or three minutes before he spoke. Then he told me that I must
pack up my portmanteau that very afternoon, and start that night by
post-horse for West Chester. I should get there, if all went well, at
the end of five days’ time, and must then wait for a packet to cross over
to Dublin; from thence I must proceed to a certain town named Kildoon,
and in that neighbourhood I was to remain, making certain inquiries as to
the existence of any descendants of the younger branch of a family to
whom some valuable estates had descended in the female line. The Irish
lawyer whom I had seen was weary of the case, and would willingly have
given up the property, without further ado, to a man who appeared to
claim them; but on laying his tables and trees before my uncle, the
latter had foreseen so many possible prior claimants, that the lawyer had
begged him to undertake the management of the whole business. In his
youth, my uncle would have liked nothing better than going over to
Ireland himself, and ferreting out every scrap of paper or parchment, and
every word of tradition respecting the family. As it was, old and gouty,
he deputed me.
Accordingly, I went to Kildoon. I suspect I had something of my uncle’s
delight in following up a genealogical scent, for I very soon found out,
when on the spot, that Mr. Rooney, the Irish lawyer, would have got both
himself and the first claimant into a terrible scrape, if he had
pronounced his opinion that the estates ought to be given up to him.
There were three poor Irish fellows, each nearer of kin to the last
possessor; but, a generation before, there was a still nearer relation,
who had never been accounted for, nor his existence ever discovered by
the lawyers, I venture to think, till I routed him out from the memory of
some of the old dependants of the family. What had become of him? I
travelled backwards and forwards; I crossed over to France, and came back
again with a slight clue, which ended in my discovering that, wild and
dissipated himself, he had left one child, a son, of yet worse character
than his father; that this same Hugh Fitzgerald had married a very
beautiful serving-woman of the Byrnes—a person below him in hereditary
rank, but above him in character; that he had died soon after his
marriage, leaving one child, whether a boy or a girl I could not learn,
and that the mother had returned to live in the family of the Byrnes.
Now, the chief of this latter family was serving in the Duke of Berwick’s
regiment, and it was long before I could hear from him; it was more than
a year before I got a short, haughty letter—I fancy he had a soldier’s
contempt for a civilian, an Irishman’s hatred for an Englishman, an
exiled Jacobite’s jealousy of one who prospered and lived tranquilly
under the government he looked upon as an usurpation. “Bridget
Fitzgerald,” he said, “had been faithful to the fortunes of his
sister—had followed her abroad, and to England when Mrs. Starkey had
thought fit to return. Both his sister and her husband were dead, he
knew nothing of Bridget Fitzgerald at the present time: probably Sir
Philip Tempest, his nephew’s guardian, might be able to give me some
information.” I have not given the little contemptuous terms; the way in
which faithful service was meant to imply more than it said—all that has
nothing to do with my story. Sir Philip, when applied to, told me that
he paid an annuity regularly to an old woman named Fitzgerald, living at
Coldholme (the village near Starkey Manor-house). Whether she had any
descendants he could not say.
One bleak March evening, I came in sight of the places described at the
beginning of my story. I could hardly understand the rude dialect in
which the direction to old Bridget’s house was given.
“Yo’ see yon furleets,” all run together, gave me no idea that I was to
guide myself by the distant lights that shone in the windows of the Hall,
occupied for the time by a farmer who held the post of steward, while the
Squire, now four or five and twenty, was making the grand tour. However,
at last, I reached Bridget’s cottage—a low, moss-grown place: the palings
that had once surrounded it were broken and gone; and the underwood of
the forest came up to the walls, and must have darkened the windows. It
was about seven o’clock—not late to my London notions—but, after knocking
for some time at the door and receiving no reply, I was driven to
conjecture that the occupant of the house was gone to bed. So I betook
myself to the nearest church I had seen, three miles back on the road I
had come, sure that close to that I should find an inn of some kind; and
early the next morning I set off back to Coldholme, by a field-path which
my host assured me I should find a shorter cut than the road I had taken
the night before. It was a cold, sharp morning; my feet left prints in
the sprinkling of hoar-frost that covered the ground; nevertheless, I saw
an old woman, whom I instinctively suspected to be the object of my
search, in a sheltered covert on one side of my path. I lingered and
watched her. She must have been considerably above the middle size in
her prime, for when she raised herself from the stooping position in
which I first saw her, there was something fine and commanding in the
erectness of her figure. She drooped again in a minute or two, and
seemed looking for something on the ground, as, with bent head, she
turned off from the spot where I gazed upon her, and was lost to my
sight. I fancy I missed my way, and made a round in spite of the
landlord’s directions; for by the time I had reached Bridget’s cottage
she was there, with no semblance of hurried walk or discomposure of any
kind. The door was slightly ajar. I knocked, and the majestic figure
stood before me, silently awaiting the explanation of my errand. Her
teeth were all gone, so the nose and chin were brought near together; the
gray eyebrows were straight, and almost hung over her deep, cavernous
eyes, and the thick white hair lay in silvery masses over the low, wide,
wrinkled forehead. For a moment, I stood uncertain how to shape my
answer to the solemn questioning of her silence.
“Your name is Bridget Fitzgerald, I believe?”
She bowed her head in assent.
“I have something to say to you. May I come in? I am unwilling to keep
you standing.”
“You cannot tire me,” she said, and at first she seemed inclined to deny
me the shelter of her roof. But the next moment—she had searched the
very soul in me with her eyes during that instant—she led me in, and
dropped the shadowing hood of her gray, draping cloak, which had
previously hid part of the character of her countenance. The cottage was
rude and bare enough. But before the picture of the Virgin, of which I
have made mention, there stood a little cup filled with fresh primroses.
While she paid her reverence to the Madonna, I understood why she had
been out seeking through the clumps of green in the sheltered copse.
Then she turned round, and bade me be seated. The expression of her
face, which all this time I was studying, was not bad, as the stories of
my last night’s landlord had led me to expect; it was a wild, stern,
fierce, indomitable countenance, seamed and scarred by agonies of
solitary weeping; but it was neither cunning nor malignant.
“My name is Bridget Fitzgerald,” said she, by way of opening our
conversation.
“And your husband was Hugh Fitzgerald, of Knock Mahon, near Kildoon, in
Ireland?”
A faint light came into the dark gloom of her eyes.
“He was.”
“May I ask if you had any children by him?”
The light in her eyes grew quick and red. She tried to speak, I could
see; but something rose in her throat, and choked her, and until she
could speak calmly, she would fain not speak at all before a stranger.
In a minute or so she said—“I had a daughter—one Mary Fitzgerald,”—then
her strong nature mastered her strong will, and she cried out, with a
trembling wailing cry: “Oh, man! what of her?—what of her?”
She rose from her seat, and came and clutched at my arm, and looked in my
eyes. There she read, as I suppose, my utter ignorance of what had
become of her child; for she went blindly back to her chair, and sat
rocking herself and softly moaning, as if I were not there; I not daring
to speak to the lone and awful woman. After a little pause, she knelt
down before the picture of Our Lady of the Holy Heart, and spoke to her
by all the fanciful and poetic names of the Litany.
“O Rose of Sharon! O Tower of David! O Star of the Sea! have ye no
comfort for my sore heart? Am I for ever to hope? Grant me at least
despair!”—and so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers grew
wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the borders of
madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, I spoke as if to stop her.
“Have you any reason to think that your daughter is dead?”
She rose from her knees, and came and stood before me.
“Mary Fitzgerald is dead,” said she. “I shall never see her again in the
flesh. No tongue ever told me; but I know she is dead. I have yearned
so to see her, and my heart’s will is fearful and strong: it would have
drawn her to me before now, if she had been a wanderer on the other side
of the world. I wonder often it has not drawn her out of the grave to
come and stand before me, and hear me tell her how I loved her. For,
sir, we parted unfriends.”
I knew nothing but the dry particulars needed for my lawyer’s quest, but
I could not help feeling for the desolate woman; and she must have read
the unusual sympathy with her wistful eyes.
“Yes, sir, we did. She never knew how I loved her; and we parted
unfriends; and I fear me that I wished her voyage might not turn out
well, only meaning,—O, blessed Virgin! you know I only meant that she
should come home to her mother’s arms as to the happiest place on earth;
but my wishes are terrible—their power goes beyond my thought—and there
is no hope for me, if my words brought Mary harm.”
“But,” I said, “you do not know that she is dead. Even now, you hoped
she might be alive. Listen to me,” and I told her the tale I have
already told you, giving it all in the driest manner, for I wanted to
recall the clear sense that I felt almost sure she had possessed in her
younger days, and by keeping up her attention to details, restrain the
vague wildness of her grief.
She listened with deep attention, putting from time to time such
questions as convinced me I had to do with no common intelligence,
however dimmed and shorn by solitude and mysterious sorrow. Then she
took up her tale; and in few brief words, told me of her wanderings
abroad in vain search after her daughter; sometimes in the wake of
armies, sometimes in camp, sometimes in city. The lady, whose
waiting-woman Mary had gone to be, had died soon after the date of her
last letter home; her husband, the foreign officer, had been serving in
Hungary, whither Bridget had followed him, but too late to find him.
Vague rumours reached her that Mary had made a great marriage: and this
sting of doubt was added,—whether the mother might not be close to her
child under her new name, and even hearing of her every day; and yet
never recognizing the lost one under the appellation she then bore. At
length the thought took possession of her, that it was possible that all
this time Mary might be at home at Coldholme, in the Trough of Bolland,
in Lancashire, in England; and home came Bridget, in that vain hope, to
her desolate hearth, and empty cottage. Here she had thought it safest
to remain; if Mary was in life, it was here she would seek for her
mother.
I noted down one or two particulars out of Bridget’s narrative that I
thought might be of use to me: for I was stimulated to further search in
a strange and extraordinary manner. It seemed as if it were impressed
upon me, that I must take up the quest where Bridget had laid it down;
and this for no reason that had previously influenced me (such as my
uncle’s anxiety on the subject, my own reputation as a lawyer, and so
on), but from some strange power which had taken possession of my will
only that very morning, and which forced it in the direction it chose.
“I will go,” said I. “I will spare nothing in the search. Trust to me.
I will learn all that can be learnt. You shall know all that money, or
pains, or wit can discover. It is true she may be long dead: but she may
have left a child.”
“A child!” she cried, as if for the first time this idea had struck her
mind. “Hear him, Blessed Virgin! he says she may have left a child. And
you have never told me, though I have prayed so for a sign, waking or
sleeping!”
“Nay,” said I, “I know nothing but what you tell me. You say you heard
of her marriage.”
But she caught nothing of what I said. She was praying to the Virgin in
a kind of ecstasy, which seemed to render her unconscious of my very
presence.
From Coldholme I went to Sir Philip Tempest’s. The wife of the foreign
officer had been a cousin of his father’s, and from him I thought I might
gain some particulars as to the existence of the Count de la Tour
d’Auvergne, and where I could find him; for I knew questions _de vive
voix_ aid the flagging recollection, and I was determined to lose no
chance for want of trouble. But Sir Philip had gone abroad, and it would
be some time before I could receive an answer. So I followed my uncle’s
advice, to whom I had mentioned how wearied I felt, both in body and
mind, by my will-o’-the-wisp search. He immediately told me to go to
Harrogate, there to await Sir Philip’s reply. I should be near to one of
the places connected with my search, Coldholme; not far from Sir Philip
Tempest, in case he returned, and I wished to ask him any further
questions; and, in conclusion, my uncle bade me try to forget all about
my business for a time.
This was far easier said than done. I have seen a child on a common
blown along by a high wind, without power of standing still and resisting
the tempestuous force. I was somewhat in the same predicament as
regarded my mental state. Something resistless seemed to urge my
thoughts on, through every possible course by which there was a chance of
attaining to my object. I did not see the sweeping moors when I walked
out: when I held a book in my hand, and read the words, their sense did
not penetrate to my brain. If I slept, I went on with the same ideas,
always flowing in the same direction. This could not last long without
having a bad effect on the body. I had an illness, which, although I was
racked with pain, was a positive relief to me, as it compelled me to live
in the present suffering, and not in the visionary researches I had been
continually making before. My kind uncle came to nurse me; and after the
immediate danger was over, my life seemed to slip away in delicious
languor for two or three months. I did not ask—so much did I dread
falling into the old channel of thought—whether any reply had been
received to my letter to Sir Philip. I turned my whole imagination right
away from all that subject. My uncle remained with me until nigh
midsummer, and then returned to his business in London; leaving me
perfectly well, although not completely strong. I was to follow him in a
fortnight; when, as he said, “we would look over letters, and talk about
several things.” I knew what this little speech alluded to, and shrank
from the train of thought it suggested, which was so intimately connected
with my first feelings of illness. However, I had a fortnight more to
roam on those invigorating Yorkshire moors.
In those days, there was one large, rambling inn, at Harrogate, close to
the Medicinal Spring; but it was already becoming too small for the
accommodation of the influx of visitors, and many lodged round about, in
the farm-houses of the district. It was so early in the season, that I
had the inn pretty much to myself; and, indeed, felt rather like a
visitor in a private house, so intimate had the landlord and landlady
become with me during my long illness. She would chide me for being out
so late on the moors, or for having been too long without food, quite in
a motherly way; while he consulted me about vintages and wines, and
taught me many a Yorkshire wrinkle about horses. In my walks I met other
strangers from time to time. Even before my uncle had left me, I had
noticed, with half-torpid curiosity, a young lady of very striking
appearance, who went about always accompanied by an elderly
companion,—hardly a gentlewoman, but with something in her look that
prepossessed me in her favour. The younger lady always put her veil down
when any one approached; so it had been only once or twice, when I had
come upon her at a sudden turn in the path, that I had even had a glimpse
at her face. I am not sure if it was beautiful, though in after-life I
grew to think it so. But it was at this time overshadowed by a sadness
that never varied: a pale, quiet, resigned look of intense suffering,
that irresistibly attracted me,—not with love, but with a sense of
infinite compassion for one so young yet so hopelessly unhappy. The
companion wore something of the same look: quiet melancholy, hopeless,
yet resigned. I asked my landlord who they were. He said they were
called Clarke, and wished to be considered as mother and daughter; but
that, for his part, he did not believe that to be their right name, or
that there was any such relationship between them. They had been in the
neighbourhood of Harrogate for some time, lodging in a remote farm-house.
The people there would tell nothing about them; saying that they paid
handsomely, and never did any harm; so why should they be speaking of any
strange things that might happen? That, as the landlord shrewdly
observed, showed there was something out of the common way he had heard
that the elderly woman was a cousin of the farmer’s where they lodged,
and so the regard existing between relations might help to keep them
quiet.
“What did he think, then, was the reason for their extreme seclusion?”
asked I.
“Nay, he could not tell,—not he. He had heard that the young lady, for
all as quiet as she seemed, played strange pranks at times.” He shook
his head when I asked him for more particulars, and refused to give them,
which made me doubt if he knew any, for he was in general a talkative and
communicative man. In default of other interests, after my uncle left, I
set myself to watch these two people. I hovered about their walks drawn
towards them with a strange fascination, which was not diminished by
their evident annoyance at so frequently meeting me. One day, I had the
sudden good fortune to be at hand when they were alarmed by the attack of
a bull, which, in those unenclosed grazing districts, was a particularly
dangerous occurrence. I have other and more important things to relate,
than to tell of the accident which gave me an opportunity of rescuing
them, it is enough to say, that this event was the beginning of an
acquaintance, reluctantly acquiesced in by them, but eagerly prosecuted
by me. I can hardly tell when intense curiosity became merged in love,
but in less than ten days after my uncle’s departure I was passionately
enamoured of Mistress Lucy, as her attendant called her; carefully—for
this I noted well—avoiding any address which appeared as if there was an
equality of station between them. I noticed also that Mrs. Clarke, the
elderly woman, after her first reluctance to allow me to pay them any
attentions had been overcome, was cheered by my evident attachment to the
young girl; it seemed to lighten her heavy burden of care, and she
evidently favoured my visits to the farmhouse where they lodged. It was
not so with Lucy. A more attractive person I never saw, in spite of her
depression of manner, and shrinking avoidance of me. I felt sure at
once, that whatever was the source of her grief, it rose from no fault of
her own. It was difficult to draw her into conversation; but when at
times, for a moment or two, I beguiled her into talk, I could see a rare
intelligence in her face, and a grave, trusting look in the soft, gray
eyes that were raised for a minute to mine. I made every excuse I
possibly could for going there. I sought wild flowers for Lucy’s sake; I
planned walks for Lucy’s sake; I watched the heavens by night, in hopes
that some unusual beauty of sky would justify me in tempting Mrs. Clarke
and Lucy forth upon the moors, to gaze at the great purple dome above.
It seemed to me that Lucy was aware of my love; but that, for some motive
which I could not guess, she would fain have repelled me; but then again
I saw, or fancied I saw, that her heart spoke in my favour, and that
there was a struggle going on in her mind, which at times (I loved so
dearly) I could have begged her to spare herself, even though the
happiness of my whole life should have been the sacrifice; for her
complexion grew paler, her aspect of sorrow more hopeless, her delicate
frame yet slighter. During this period I had written, I should say, to
my uncle, to beg to be allowed to prolong my stay at Harrogate, not
giving any reason; but such was his tenderness towards me, that in a few
days I heard from him, giving me a willing permission, and only charging
me to take care of myself, and not use too much exertion during the hot
weather.
One sultry evening I drew near the farm. The windows of their parlour
were open, and I heard voices when I turned the corner of the house, as I
passed the first window (there were two windows in their little
ground-floor room). I saw Lucy distinctly; but when I had knocked at
their door—the house-door stood always ajar—she was gone, and I saw only
Mrs. Clarke, turning over the work-things lying on the table, in a
nervous and purposeless manner. I felt by instinct that a conversation
of some importance was coming on, in which I should be expected to say
what was my object in paying these frequent visits. I was glad of the
opportunity. My uncle had several times alluded to the pleasant
possibility of my bringing home a young wife, to cheer and adorn the old
house in Ormond Street. He was rich, and I was to succeed him, and had,
as I knew, a fair reputation for so young a lawyer. So on my side I saw
no obstacle. It was true that Lucy was shrouded in mystery; her name (I
was convinced it was not Clarke), birth, parentage, and previous life
were unknown to me. But I was sure of her goodness and sweet innocence,
and although I knew that there must be something painful to be told, to
account for her mournful sadness, yet I was willing to bear my share in
her grief, whatever it might be.
Mrs. Clarke began, as if it was a relief to her to plunge into the
subject.
“We have thought, sir—at least I have thought—that you knew very little
of us, nor we of you, indeed; not enough to warrant the intimate
acquaintance we have fallen into. I beg your pardon, sir,” she went on,
nervously; “I am but a plain kind of woman, and I mean to use no
rudeness; but I must say straight out that I—we—think it would be better
for you not to come so often to see us. She is very unprotected, and—”
“Why should I not come to see you, dear madam?” asked I, eagerly, glad of
the opportunity of explaining myself. “I come, I own, because I have
learnt to love Mistress Lucy, and wish to teach her to love me.”
Mistress Clarke shook her head, and sighed.
“Don’t, sir—neither love her, nor, for the sake of all you hold sacred,
teach her to love you! If I am too late, and you love her already,
forget her,—forget these last few weeks. O! I should never have allowed
you to come!” she went on passionately; “but what am I to do? We are
forsaken by all, except the great God, and even He permits a strange and
evil power to afflict us—what am I to do! Where is it to end?” She wrung
her hands in her distress; then she turned to me: “Go away, sir! go away,
before you learn to care any more for her. I ask it for your own sake—I
implore! You have been good and kind to us, and we shall always
recollect you with gratitude; but go away now, and never come back to
cross our fatal path!”
“Indeed, madam,” said I, “I shall do no such thing. You urge it for my
own sake. I have no fear, so urged—nor wish, except to hear more—all. I
cannot have seen Mistress Lucy in all the intimacy of this last
fortnight, without acknowledging her goodness and innocence; and without
seeing—pardon me, madam—that for some reason you are two very lonely
women, in some mysterious sorrow and distress. Now, though I am not
powerful myself, yet I have friends who are so wise and kind that they
may be said to possess power. Tell me some particulars. Why are you in
grief—what is your secret—why are you here? I declare solemnly that
nothing you have said has daunted me in my wish to become Lucy’s husband;
nor will I shrink from any difficulty that, as such an aspirant, I may
have to encounter. You say you are friendless—why cast away an honest
friend? I will tell you of people to whom you may write, and who will
answer any questions as to my character and prospects. I do not shun
inquiry.”
She shook her head again. “You had better go away, sir. You know
nothing about us.”
“I know your names,” said I, “and I have heard you allude to the part of
the country from which you came, which I happen to know as a wild and
lonely place. There are so few people living in it that, if I chose to
go there, I could easily ascertain all about you; but I would rather hear
it from yourself.” You see I wanted to pique her into telling me
something definite.
“You do not know our true names, sir,” said she, hastily.
“Well, I may have conjectured as much. But tell me, then, I conjure you.
Give me your reasons for distrusting my willingness to stand by what I
have said with regard to Mistress Lucy.”
“Oh, what can I do?” exclaimed she. “If I am turning away a true friend,
as he says?—Stay!” coming to a sudden decision—“I will tell you
something—I cannot tell you all—you would not believe it. But, perhaps,
I can tell you enough to prevent your going on in your hopeless
attachment. I am not Lucy’s mother.”
“So I conjectured,” I said. “Go on.”
“I do not even know whether she is the legitimate or illegitimate child
of her father. But he is cruelly turned against her; and her mother is
long dead; and for a terrible reason, she has no other creature to keep
constant to her but me. She—only two years ago—such a darling and such a
pride in her father’s house! Why, sir, there is a mystery that might
happen in connection with her any moment; and then you would go away like
all the rest; and, when you next heard her name, you would loathe her.
Others, who have loved her longer, have done so before now. My poor
child! whom neither God nor man has mercy upon—or, surely, she would
die!”
The good woman was stopped by her crying. I confess, I was a little
stunned by her last words; but only for a moment. At any rate, till I
knew definitely what was this mysterious stain upon one so simple and
pure, as Lucy seemed, I would not desert her, and so I said; and she made
me answer:—
“If you are daring in your heart to think harm of my child, sir, after
knowing her as you have done, you are no good man yourself; but I am so
foolish and helpless in my great sorrow, that I would fain hope to find a
friend in you. I cannot help trusting that, although you may no longer
feel toward her as a lover, you will have pity upon us; and perhaps, by
your learning you can tell us where to go for aid.”
“I implore you to tell me what this mystery is,” I cried, almost maddened
by this suspense.
“I cannot,” said she, solemnly. “I am under a deep vow of secrecy. If
you are to be told, it must be by her.” She left the room, and I
remained to ponder over this strange interview. I mechanically turned
over the few books, and with eyes that saw nothing at the time, examined
the tokens of Lucy’s frequent presence in that room.
When I got home at night, I remembered how all these trifles spoke of a
pure and tender heart and innocent life. Mistress Clarke returned; she
had been crying sadly.
“Yes,” said she, “it is as I feared: she loves you so much that she is
willing to run the fearful risk of telling you all herself—she
acknowledges it is but a poor chance; but your sympathy will be a balm,
if you give it. To-morrow, come here at ten in the morning; and, as you
hope for pity in your hour of agony, repress all show of fear or
repugnance you may feel towards one so grievously afflicted.”
I half smiled. “Have no fear,” I said. It seemed too absurd to imagine
my feeling dislike to Lucy.
“Her father loved her well,” said she, gravely, “yet he drove her out
like some monstrous thing.”
Just at this moment came a peal of ringing laughter from the garden. It
was Lucy’s voice; it sounded as if she were standing just on one side of
the open casement—and as though she were suddenly stirred to
merriment—merriment verging on boisterousness, by the doings or sayings
of some other person. I can scarcely say why, but the sound jarred on me
inexpressibly. She knew the subject of our conversation, and must have
been at least aware of the state of agitation her friend was in; she
herself usually so gentle and quiet. I half rose to go to the window,
and satisfy my instinctive curiosity as to what had provoked this burst
of, ill-timed laughter; but Mrs. Clarke threw her whole weight and power
upon the hand with which she pressed and kept me down.
“For God’s sake!” she said, white and trembling all over, “sit still; be
quiet. Oh! be patient. To-morrow you will know all. Leave us, for we
are all sorely afflicted. Do not seek to know more about us.”
Again that laugh—so musical in sound, yet so discordant to my heart. She
held me tight—tighter; without positive violence I could not have risen.
I was sitting with my back to the window, but I felt a shadow pass
between the sun’s warmth and me, and a strange shudder ran through my
frame. In a minute or two she released me.
“Go,” repeated she. “Be warned, I ask you once more. I do not think you
can stand this knowledge that you seek. If I had had my own way, Lucy
should never have yielded, and promised to tell you all. Who knows what
may come of it?”
“I am firm in my wish to know all. I return at ten to-morrow morning,
and then expect to see Mistress Lucy herself.”
I turned away; having my own suspicions, I confess, as to Mistress
Clarke’s sanity.
Conjectures as to the meaning of her hints, and uncomfortable thoughts
connected with that strange laughter, filled my mind. I could hardly
sleep. I rose early; and long before the hour I had appointed, I was on
the path over the common that led to the old farm-house where they
lodged. I suppose that Lucy had passed no better a night than I; for
there she was also, slowly pacing with her even step, her eyes bent down,
her whole look most saintly and pure. She started when I came close to
her, and grew paler as I reminded her of my appointment, and spoke with
something of the impatience of obstacles that, seeing her once more, had
called up afresh in my mind. All strange and terrible hints, and giddy
merriment were forgotten. My heart gave forth words of fire, and my
tongue uttered them. Her colour went and came, as she listened; but,
when I had ended my passionate speeches, she lifted her soft eyes to me,
and said—
“But you know that you have something to learn about me yet. I only want
to say this: I shall not think less of you—less well of you, I mean—if
you, too, fall away from me when you know all. Stop!” said she, as if
fearing another burst of mad words. “Listen to me. My father is a man
of great wealth. I never knew my mother; she must have died when I was
very young. When first I remember anything, I was living in a great,
lonely house, with my dear and faithful Mistress Clarke. My father,
even, was not there; he was—he is—a soldier, and his duties lie aboard.
But he came from time to time, and every time I think he loved me more
and more. He brought me rarities from foreign lands, which prove to me
now how much he must have thought of me during his absences. I can sit
down and measure the depth of his lost love now, by such standards as
these. I never thought whether he loved me or not, then; it was so
natural, that it was like the air I breathed. Yet he was an angry man at
times, even then; but never with me. He was very reckless, too; and,
once or twice, I heard a whisper among the servants that a doom was over
him, and that he knew it, and tried to drown his knowledge in wild
activity, and even sometimes, sir, in wine. So I grew up in this grand
mansion, in that lonely place. Everything around me seemed at my
disposal, and I think every one loved me; I am sure I loved them. Till
about two years ago—I remember it well—my father had come to England, to
us; and he seemed so proud and so pleased with me and all I had done.
And one day his tongue seemed loosened with wine, and he told me much
that I had not known till then,—how dearly he had loved my mother, yet
how his wilful usage had caused her death; and then he went on to say how
he loved me better than any creature on earth, and how, some day, he
hoped to take me to foreign places, for that he could hardly bear these
long absences from his only child. Then he seemed to change suddenly,
and said, in a strange, wild way, that I was not to believe what he said;
that there was many a thing he loved better—his horse—his dog—I know not
what.
“And ’twas only the next morning that, when I came into his room to ask
his blessing as was my wont, he received me with fierce and angry words.
‘Why had I,’ so he asked, ‘been delighting myself in such wanton
mischief—dancing over the tender plants in the flower-beds, all set with
the famous Dutch bulbs he had brought from Holland?’ I had never been out
of doors that morning, sir, and I could not conceive what he meant, and
so I said; and then he swore at me for a liar, and said I was of no true
blood, for he had seen me doing all that mischief himself—with his own
eyes. What could I say? He would not listen to me, and even my tears
seemed only to irritate him. That day was the beginning of my great
sorrows. Not long after, he reproached me for my undue familiarity—all
unbecoming a gentlewoman—with his grooms. I had been in the stable-yard,
laughing and talking, he said. Now, sir, I am something of a coward by
nature, and I had always dreaded horses; be-sides that, my father’s
servants—those whom he brought with him from foreign parts—were wild
fellows, whom I had always avoided, and to whom I had never spoken,
except as a lady must needs from time to time speak to her father’s
people. Yet my father called me by names of which I hardly know the
meaning, but my heart told me they were such as shame any modest woman;
and from that day he turned quite against me;—nay, sir, not many weeks
after that, he came in with a riding-whip in his hand; and, accusing me
harshly of evil doings, of which I knew no more than you, sir, he was
about to strike me, and I, all in bewildering tears, was ready to take
his stripes as great kindness compared to his harder words, when suddenly
he stopped his arm mid-way, gasped and staggered, crying out, ‘The
curse—the curse!’ I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I
saw myself, and right behind, another wicked, fearful self, so like me
that my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which
similitude of body it belonged. My father saw my double at the same
moment, either in its dreadful reality, whatever that might be, or in the
scarcely less terrible reflection in the mirror; but what came of it at
that moment I cannot say, for I suddenly swooned away; and when I came to
myself I was lying in my bed, and my faithful Clarke sitting by me. I
was in my bed for days; and even while I lay there my double was seen by
all, flitting about the house and gardens, always about some mischievous
or detestable work. What wonder that every one shrank from me in
dread—that my father drove me forth at length, when the disgrace of which
I was the cause was past his patience to bear. Mistress Clarke came with
me; and here we try to live such a life of piety and prayer as may in
time set me free from the curse.”
All the time she had been speaking, I had been weighing her story in my
mind. I had hitherto put cases of witchcraft on one side, as mere
superstitions; and my uncle and I had had many an argument, he supporting
himself by the opinion of his good friend Sir Matthew Hale. Yet this
sounded like the tale of one bewitched; or was it merely the effect of a
life of extreme seclusion telling on the nerves of a sensitive girl? My
scepticism inclined me to the latter belief, and when she paused I said:
“I fancy that some physician could have disabused your father of his
belief in visions—”
Just at that instant, standing as I was opposite to her in the full and
perfect morning light, I saw behind her another figure—a ghastly
resemblance, complete in likeness, so far as form and feature and
minutest touch of dress could go, but with a loathsome demon soul looking
out of the gray eyes, that were in turns mocking and voluptuous. My
heart stood still within me; every hair rose up erect; my flesh crept
with horror. I could not see the grave and tender Lucy—my eyes were
fascinated by the creature beyond. I know not why, but I put out my hand
to clutch it; I grasped nothing but empty air, and my whole blood curdled
to ice. For a moment I could not see; then my sight came back, and I saw
Lucy standing before me, alone, deathly pale, and, I could have fancied,
almost, shrunk in size.
“IT has been near me?” she said, as if asking a question.
The sound seemed taken out of her voice; it was husky as the notes on an
old harpsichord when the strings have ceased to vibrate. She read her
answer in my face, I suppose, for I could not speak. Her look was one of
intense fear, but that died away into an aspect of most humble patience.
At length she seemed to force herself to face behind and around her: she
saw the purple moors, the blue distant hills, quivering in the sunlight,
but nothing else.
“Will you take me home?” she said, meekly.
I took her by the hand, and led her silently through the budding
heather—we dared not speak; for we could not tell but that the dread
creature was listening, although unseen,—but that IT might appear and
push us asunder. I never loved her more fondly than now when—and that
was the unspeakable misery—the idea of her was becoming so inextricably
blended with the shuddering thought of IT. She seemed to understand what
I must be feeling. She let go my hand, which she had kept clasped until
then, when we reached the garden gate, and went forwards to meet her
anxious friend, who was standing by the window looking for her. I could
not enter the house: I needed silence, society, leisure, change—I knew
not what—to shake off the sensation of that creature’s presence. Yet I
lingered about the garden—I hardly know why; I partly suppose, because I
feared to encounter the resemblance again on the solitary common, where
it had vanished, and partly from a feeling of inexpressible compassion
for Lucy. In a few minutes Mistress Clarke came forth and joined me. We
walked some paces in silence.
“You know all now,” said she, solemnly.
“I saw IT,” said I, below my breath.
“And you shrink from us, now,” she said, with a hopelessness which
stirred up all that was brave or good in me.
“Not a whit,” said I. “Human flesh shrinks from encounter with the
powers of darkness: and, for some reason unknown to me, the pure and holy
Lucy is their victim.”
“The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children,” she said.
“Who is her father?” asked I. “Knowing as much as I do, I may surely
know more—know all. Tell me, I entreat you, madam, all that you can
conjecture respecting this demoniac persecution of one so good.”
“I will; but not now. I must go to Lucy now. Come this afternoon, I
will see you alone; and oh, sir! I will trust that you may yet find some
way to help us in our sore trouble!”
I was miserably exhausted by the swooning affright which had taken
possession of me. When I reached the inn, I staggered in like one
overcome by wine. I went to my own private room. It was some time
before I saw that the weekly post had come in, and brought me my letters.
There was one from my uncle, one from my home in Devonshire, and one,
re-directed over the first address, sealed with a great coat of arms, It
was from Sir Philip Tempest: my letter of inquiry respecting Mary
Fitzgerald had reached him at Liége, where it so happened that the Count
de la Tour d’Auvergne was quartered at the very time. He remembered his
wife’s beautiful attendant; she had had high words with the deceased
countess, respecting her intercourse with an English gentleman of good
standing, who was also in the foreign service. The countess augured evil
of his intentions; while Mary, proud and vehement, asserted that he would
soon marry her, and resented her mistress’s warnings as an insult. The
consequence was, that she had left Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne’s
service, and, as the Count believed, had gone to live with the
Englishman; whether he had married her, or not, he could not say. “But,”
added Sir Philip Tempest, “you may easily hear what particulars you wish
to know respecting Mary Fitzgerald from the Englishman himself, if, as I
suspect, he is no other than my neighbour and former acquaintance, Mr.
Gisborne, of Skipford Hall, in the West Riding. I am led to the belief
that he is no other, by several small particulars, none of which are in
themselves conclusive, but which, taken together, furnish a mass of
presumptive evidence. As far as I could make out from the Count’s
foreign pronunciation, Gisborne was the name of the Englishman: I know
that Gisborne of Skipford was abroad and in the foreign service at that
time—he was a likely fellow enough for such an exploit, and, above all,
certain expressions recur to my mind which he used in reference to old
Bridget Fitzgerald, of Coldholme, whom he once encountered while staying
with me at Starkey Manor-house. I remember that the meeting seemed to
have produced some extraordinary effect upon his mind, as though he had
suddenly discovered some connection which she might have had with his
previous life. I beg you to let me know if I can be of any further
service to you. Your uncle once rendered me a good turn, and I will
gladly repay it, so far as in me lies, to his nephew.”
I was now apparently close on the discovery which I had striven so many
months to attain. But success had lost its zest. I put my letters down,
and seemed to forget them all in thinking of the morning I had passed
that very day. Nothing was real but the unreal presence, which had come
like an evil blast across my bodily eyes, and burnt itself down upon my
brain. Dinner came, and went away untouched. Early in the afternoon I
walked to the farm-house. I found Mistress Clarke alone, and I was glad
and relieved. She was evidently prepared to tell me all I might wish to
hear.
“You asked me for Mistress Lucy’s true name; it is Gisborne,” she began.
“Not Gisborne of Skipford?” I exclaimed, breathless with anticipation.
“The same,” said she, quietly, not regarding my manner. “Her father is a
man of note; although, being a Roman Catholic, he cannot take that rank
in this country to which his station entitles him. The consequence is
that he lives much abroad—has been a soldier, I am told.”
“And Lucy’s mother?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I never knew her,” said she. “Lucy was about three
years old when I was engaged to take charge of her. Her mother was
dead.”
“But you know her name?—you can tell if it was Mary Fitzgerald?”
She looked astonished. “That was her name. But, sir, how came you to be
so well acquainted with it? It was a mystery to the whole household at
Skipford Court. She was some beautiful young woman whom he lured away
from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard said he practised
some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to know it, she was
neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his very arms, and threw
herself into a rapid stream and was drowned. It stung him deep with
remorse, but I used to think the remembrance of the mother’s cruel death
made him love the child yet dearer.”
I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after the descendant
and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and added—something of my old
lawyer spirit returning into me for the moment—that I had no doubt but
that we should prove Lucy to be by right possessed of large estates in
Ireland.
No flush came over her gray face; no light into her eyes. “And what is
all the wealth in the whole world to that poor girl?” she said. “It will
not free her from the ghastly bewitchment which persecutes her. As for
money, what a pitiful thing it is! it cannot touch her.”
“No more can the Evil Creature harm her,” I said. “Her holy nature
dwells apart, and cannot be defiled or stained by all the devilish arts
in the whole world.”
“True! but it is a cruel fate to know that all shrink from her, sooner or
later, as from one possessed—accursed.”
“How came it to pass?” I asked.
“Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were bruited through the
household at Skipford.”
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“They came from servants, who would fain account for every thing. They
say that, many years ago, Mr. Gisborne killed a dog belonging to an old
witch at Coldholme; that she cursed, with a dreadful and mysterious
curse, the creature, whatever it might be, that he should love best; and
that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years he kept himself
aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who could help loving
Lucy?”
“You never heard the witch’s name?” I gasped.
“Yes—they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the spot
again for terror of her. Yet he was a brave man!”
“Listen,” said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her full
attention: “if what I suspect holds true, that man stole Bridget’s only
child—the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy’s mother; if so, Bridget
cursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had done her. To this
hour she yearns after her lost child, and questions the saints whether
she be living or not. The roots of that curse lie deeper than she knows:
she unwittingly banned him for a deeper guilt than that of killing a dumb
beast. The sins of the fathers are indeed visited upon the children.”
“But,” said Mistress Clarke, eagerly, “she would never let evil rest on
her own grandchild? Surely, sir, if what you say be true, there are
hopes for Lucy. Let us go—go at once, and tell this fearful woman all
that you suspect, and beseech her to take off the spell she has put upon
her innocent grandchild.”
It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this was the best course we
could pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than what
mere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned to my
uncle—he could advise me wisely—he ought to know all. I resolved to go
to him without delay; but I did not choose to tell Mistress Clarke of all
the visionary plans that flitted through my mind. I simply declared my
intention of proceeding straight to London on Lucy’s affairs. I bade her
believe that my interest on the young lady’s behalf was greater than
ever, and that my whole time should be given up to her cause. I saw that
Mistress Clarke distrusted me, because my mind was too full of thoughts
for my words to flow freely. She sighed and shook her head, and said,
“Well, it is all right!” in such a tone that it was an implied reproach.
But I was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence from that.
I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the lovely summer
nights: I could not rest. I reached London. I told my uncle all, though
in the stir of the great city the horror had faded away, and I could
hardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of the
fearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side. But my
uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in the deep
secrets of family history that had been confided to him, he had heard of
cases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession of by evil
spirits yet more fearful than Lucy’s. For, as he said, to judge from all
I told him, that resemblance had no power over her—she was too pure and
good to be tainted by its evil, haunting presence. It had, in all
probability, so my uncle conceived, tried to suggest wicked thoughts and
to tempt to wicked actions but she, in her saintly maidenhood, had passed
on undefiled by evil thought or deed. It could not touch her soul: but
true, it set her apart from all sweet love or common human intercourse.
My uncle threw himself with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty
into the consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving
Lucy’s descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and
obtain, firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of
Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting the
working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been taken to
exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of instances where, by
prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had been driven forth with
howling and many cries from the body which it had come to inhabit; he
spoke of those strange New England cases which had happened not so long
before; of Mr. Defoe, who had written a book, wherein he had named many
modes of subduing apparitions, and sending them back whence they came;
and, lastly, he spoke low of dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo
their witchcraft. But I could not endure to hear of those tortures and
burnings. I said that Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a
malignant witch; and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and
that, in putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should be
torturing—it might be to the death—the ancestress of her we sought to
redeem.
My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last matter I was
right—at any rate, it should not be tried, with his consent, till all
other modes of remedy had failed; and he assented to my proposal that I
should go myself and see Bridget, and tell her all.
In accordance with this, I went down once more to the wayside inn near
Coldholme. It was late at night when I arrived there; and, while I
supped, I inquired of the landlord more particulars as to Bridget’s ways.
Solitary and savage had been her life for many years. Wild and despotic
were her words and manner to those few people who came across her path.
The country-folk did her imperious bidding, because they feared to
disobey. If they pleased her, they prospered; if, on the contrary, they
neglected or traversed her behests, misfortune, small or great, fell on
them and theirs. It was not detestation so much as an indefinable terror
that she excited.
In the morning I went to see her. She was standing on the green outside
her cottage, and received me with the sullen grandeur of a throneless
queen. I read in her face that she recognized me, and that I was not
unwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my errand.
“I have news of your daughter,” said I, resolved to speak straight to all
that I knew she felt of love, and not to spare her. “She is dead!”
The stern figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought the support of
the door-post.
“I knew that she was dead,” said she, deep and low, and then was silent
for an instant. “My tears that should have flowed for her were burnt up
long years ago. Young man, tell me about her.”
“Not yet,” said I, having a strange power given me of confronting one,
whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I dreaded.
“You had once a little dog,” I continued. The words called out in her
more show of emotion than the intelligence of her daughter’s death. She
broke in upon my speech:—
“I had! It was hers—the last thing I had of hers—and it was shot for
wantonness! It died in my arms. The man who killed that dog rues it to
this day. For that dumb beast’s blood, his best-beloved stands
accursed.”
Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw the working of her
curse. Again I spoke:—
“O, woman!” I said, “that best-beloved, standing accursed before men, is
your dead daughter’s child.”
The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes with which she
pierced through me, to see if I spoke truth; then, without another
question or word, she threw herself on the ground with fearful vehemence,
and clutched at the innocent daisies with convulsed hands.
“Bone of my bone! flesh of my flesh! have I cursed thee—and art thou
accursed?”
So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. I stood aghast
at my own work. She did not hear my broken sentences; she asked no more,
but the dumb confirmation which my sad looks had given that one fact,
that her curse rested on her own daughter’s child. The fear grew on me
lest she should die in her strife of body and soul; and then might not
Lucy remain under the spell as long as she lived?
Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the woodland path that led
to Bridget’s cottage; Mistress Clarke was with her: I felt at my heart
that it was she, by the balmy peace which the look of her sent over me,
as she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her soft quiet
eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell on the woman
lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of tender pity; and
she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating herself on the turf,
she took Bridget’s head into her lap; and, with gentle touches, she
arranged the dishevelled gray hair streaming thick and wild from beneath
her mutch.
“God help her!” murmured Lucy. “How she suffers!”
At her desire we sought for water; but when we returned, Bridget had
recovered her wandering senses, and was kneeling with clasped hands
before Lucy, gazing at that sweet sad face as though her troubled nature
drank in health and peace from every moment’s contemplation. A faint
tinge on Lucy’s pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of our return;
otherwise it appeared as if she was conscious of her influence for good
over the passionate and troubled woman kneeling before her, and would not
willingly avert her grave and loving eyes from that wrinkled and careworn
countenance.
Suddenly—in the twinkling of an eye—the creature appeared, there, behind
Lucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling exactly as
Bridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry as Bridget
clasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a prayer. Mistress
Clarke cried out—Bridget arose slowly, her gaze fixed on the creature
beyond: drawing her breath with a hissing sound, never moving her
terrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she made a dart at the phantom,
and caught, as I had done, a mere handful of empty air. We saw no more
of the creature—it vanished as suddenly as it came, but Bridget looked
slowly on, as if watching some receding form. Lucy sat still, white,
trembling, drooping—I think she would have swooned if I had not been
there to uphold her. While I was attending to her, Bridget passed us,
without a word to any one, and, entering her cottage, she barred herself
in, and left us without.
All our endeavours were now directed to get Lucy back to the house where
she had tarried the night before. Mistress Clarke told me that, not
hearing from me (some letter must have miscarried), she had grown
impatient and despairing, and had urged Lucy to the enterprise of coming
to seek her grandmother; not telling her, indeed, of the dread reputation
she possessed, or how we suspected her of having so fearfully blighted
that innocent girl; but, at the same time, hoping much from the
mysterious stirring of blood, which Mistress Clarke trusted in for the
removal of the curse. They had come, by a different route from that
which I had taken, to a village inn not far from Coldholme, only the
night before. This was the first interview between ancestress and
descendant.
All through the sultry noon I wandered along the tangled brush-wood of
the old neglected forest, thinking where to turn for remedy in a matter
so complicated and mysterious. Meeting a countryman, I asked my way to
the nearest clergyman, and went, hoping to obtain some counsel from him.
But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded man, giving no time or
attention to the intricacies of a case, but dashing out a strong opinion
involving immediate action. For instance, as soon as I named Bridget
Fitzgerald, he exclaimed:—
“The Coldholme witch! the Irish papist! I’d have had her ducked long
since but for that other papist, Sir Philip Tempest. He has had to
threaten honest folk about here over and over again, or they’d have had
her up before the justices for her black doings. And it’s the law of the
land that witches should be burnt! Ay, and of Scripture, too, sir! Yet
you see a papist, if he’s a rich squire, can overrule both law and
Scripture. I’d carry a faggot myself to rid the country of her!”
Such a one could give me no help. I rather drew back what I had already
said; and tried to make the parson forget it, by treating him to several
pots of beer, in the village inn, to which we had adjourned for our
conference at his suggestion. I left him as soon as I could, and
returned to Coldholme, shaping my way past deserted Starkey Manor-house,
and coming upon it by the back. At that side were the oblong remains of
the old moat, the waters of which lay placid and motionless under the
crimson rays of the setting sun; with the forest-trees lying straight
along each side, and their deep-green foliage mirrored to blackness in
the burnished surface of the moat below—and the broken sun-dial at the
end nearest the hall—and the heron, standing on one leg at the water’s
edge, lazily looking down for fish—the lonely and desolate house scarce
needed the broken windows, the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter
softly flapping to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture
of desertion and decay. I lingered about the place until the growing
darkness warned me on. And then I passed along the path, cut by the
orders of the last lady of Starkey Manor-House, that led me to Bridget’s
cottage. I resolved at once to see her; and, in spite of closed doors—it
might be of resolved will—she should see me. So I knocked at her door,
gently, loudly, fiercely. I shook it so vehemently that a length the old
hinges gave way, and with a crash it fell inwards, leaving me suddenly
face to face with Bridget—I, red, heated, agitated with my so long
baffled efforts—she, stiff as any stone, standing right facing me, her
eyes dilated with terror, her ashen lips trembling, but her body
motionless. In her hands she held her crucifix, as if by that holy
symbol she sought to oppose my entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame
relaxed, and she sank back upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given
way. Still her eyes looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air,
made more opaque by the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed
before the picture of the Virgin.
“Is she there?” asked Bridget, hoarsely.
“No! Who? I am alone. You remember me.”
“Yes,” replied she, still terror stricken. “But she—that creature—has
been looking in upon me through that window all day long. I closed it up
with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door, as long as it was
light, and I knew she heard my very breathing—nay, worse, my very
prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening choked the words ere
they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she?—what means that double girl I
saw this morning? One had a look of my dead Mary; but the other curdled
my blood, and yet it was the same!”
She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself some human
companionship. She shook all over with the slight, never-ceasing tremor
of intense terror. I told her my tale as I have told it you, sparing
none of the details.
How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resemblance had driven Lucy
forth from her father’s house—how I had disbelieved, until, with mine own
eyes, I had seen another Lucy standing behind my Lucy, the same in form
and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of the eyes. I told her
all, I say, believing that she—whose curse was working so upon the life
of her innocent grandchild—was the only person who could find the remedy
and the redemption. When I had done, she sat silent for many minutes.
“You love Mary’s child?” she asked.
“I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse—I love her. Yet I
shrink from her ever since that day on the moor-side. And men must
shrink from one so accompanied; friends and lovers must stand afar off.
Oh, Bridget Fitzgerald! loosen the curse! Set her free!”
“Where is she?”
I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was needed, in order that,
by some strange prayer or exorcism, the spell might be reversed.
“I will go and bring her to you,” I exclaimed. Bridget tightened her
hold upon my arm.
“Not so,” said she, in a low, hoarse voice. “It would kill me to see her
again as I saw her this morning. And I must live till I have worked my
work. Leave me!” said she, suddenly, and again taking up the cross. “I
defy the demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle with it!”
She stood up, as if in an ecstasy of inspiration, from which all fear was
banished. I lingered—why I can hardly tell—until once more she bade me
begone. As I went along the forest way, I looked back, and saw her
planting the cross in the empty threshold, where the door had been.
The next morning Lucy and I went to seek her, to bid her join her prayers
with ours. The cottage stood open and wide to our gaze. No human being
was there: the cross remained on the threshold, but Bridget was gone.